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Monday, 4 January 2016

Kylo Ren - The Man with the Funky Lightsaber - #MonsterMondays 29

First off a warning - this post contains SPOILERS for The Force Awakens, so many SPOILERS. If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to know, come back when you have :).So I saw The Force Awakens last week and I loved it and I also loved Kylo Ren, the primary antagonist, so I had to chose him for Monster Mondays 29. I do hope you enjoy the post.

Now I know a lot of people make fun of Kylo Ren, and given the whole scene with the two Stormtroopers who turned around and walked the other way when they realised he was having another tantrum, I think we are supposed to at times. He is not like the calm, controlled, perfectly adult Vader from the original trilogy, he is young and reckless and far too easy to rile up. I have seen him described as the emo kid in Hot Topic and I can see why, but he also clearly has deep emotional problems which I think Adam Driver plays really well.

Kylo Ren is the epitome of too powerful for his own good. He is Anakin Skywalker all over again, only he is terrified of not being as great as his grandfather. Here we have a young man with not only Daddy issues, but Granddaddy issues too. He seems to resent the greatness of his father Han Solo and wants to be his grandfather Darth Vader, while somehow not believing he will ever be quite powerful enough.

He is a monster in that he kills without mercy and yet he admits himself that he still feels the pull towards the light. Just like Vader there is still good in him.

I really wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have a redemption arc coming his way in the subsequent films.

Yes he killed his own father, but the question is, will that help him go completely dark, or will it, in fact, turn him back towards the light. We all know that when people connected with Jedi die they have a tendency to come back even stronger and glowing. Yes Han isn't a Jedi, but he and Leia produced a very Force powerful son, so the likelihood is that he could easily hang on. Also we saw Han skewered and he fell off the bridge and Leia felt his pain, but this is Sci-Fi, we didn't see a body, he could pop back up at any moment as far as I'm concerned :).

I think Kylo Ren is a great bad guy and I love his tantrums. He was also part of the greatest scene in the film in my opinion, the interrogation scene with Rey. They both play off each other so well and Ren's growing doubt against Rey's growing confidence is just wonderful. Then there's their fight scene at the end which is also brilliantly done.

I look forward to seeing much more of Kylo Ren in future films. I suspect he's going to be badder than bad in the next one, even more of a monster. After all we did find out at the end of the film that his training isn't actually complete. He definitely inherited the Skywalker drama gene if nothing else :).

9 comments:

I love that Kylo Ren is the first time we actually see a Dark Jedi give into their emotions the way we were always told they're supposed to. All the previous villains - Vader, Palpatine, Darth Maul, Christopher Lee - were pretty calm and collected. Ren is actually passionate, aggressive, impulsive, temperamental, prone to violence and mood swings. He embodies all the elements of the Sith Code and what the Emperor preached but never actually portrayed... even if it makes him come across as a petulant child.

I enjoyed him as a villain too. I watched a video that talked about theory's the youtuber had (she called them crackpot theories) and she had some interesting ideas about Kylo that I thought would be interesting if they ended up true.

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